Interactive Augmented Reality App

The client was looking to materialize its ambitious project and was looking for the right technology partner to give wings to its vision. The company manufactures DIY kids’ fridge magnets where children follow instructions and piece together a puzzle to create the final character. They were looking at taking this concept forward by digitizing it to make it more interactive by creating a fun and educational app for children.

So, we developed this app that will allow for infinite number of stories each time so that every time the character pops up, it has something different to offer to the kids.

Technologies/Concepts

COCOA TOUCH

iPhone5.2

MAC OS

Objective-C

XCODE3.2.5

Key Challenges

The customer had spoken to a dozen other companies and each came up with different solutions. None of which could economically accommodate consistent story and product updates. However, Exceptionaire was not only able to put together a solution using wikitude SDK for virtual reality that fit the brief perfectly but also offered almost elastic scalability.

But the app needed to be both interactive and dynamic as kids have a very short attention span. It needed to scan the character put together by the kid and throw up a virtual reality character that came with a different story every time in the form of an image, activity or audio. The company wanted to build a system that will allow for infinite number of stories each time so that every time the character pops up, it has something different to offer to the kids. This is when they contacted Exceptionaire through the latter’s social media account.

When they hired ValueCoders, we had to address to the following tasks:

An application/tool for kids to visualize virtual characters and play with them.

The app should come up with different stories everytime.

The stories should be able to connect with social media.

While developing, we faced various challenges including the following ones:

Ability to accommodate infinite number of products and corresponding stories.

To reduce the development cost.

To be able to develop and upload the app within the hard deadline set, as the project was already behind schedule.

Our iOS app developers at ValueCoders had overcome these challenges with their innovative ideas and technical expertise.

Our Solutions

We built a system that had the ability to push new products or stories from a web backend onto the mobile app. This ensured that there was virtually no cap on the number of products or stories that can be used for each character.

We gamified the experience for children by creating a complete virtual experience. For instance, if the kid has put together a Santa Claus, scanning it will give life to a Virtual Santa on the app. This virtual Santa can give a Christmas gift to the kid, manifest into a game, throw up a message or anything that is conceptualized making it highly interactive.

Since this app is of a ‘first-of-its-kind type’, the customer wanted to conservatively spend on the POC to test its effectiveness. Given this, we built the app on a hybrid platform to reduce the development cost by 40% in comparison to native apps.

As the customer was already behind schedule with this app, we had to meet a 1-month hard deadline set by the customer, who was personally present to oversee the development. The customer chose us from a possible 6 options and flew down all the way from Australia to meet with the team and ensure the plan is effectively put into motion.

Results

ValueCoders successfully executed this AR app well within the time frame. The client achieved its target of making a user friendly statistics upload mobile application and adding custom functions for better customer experience.

It was a learning experience for ValueCoders to work on this development project that has helped the client and brought in repeat business as well. We ensured that the client and the development team were on the same page by frequent collaboration and regularly making use of project reporting tools. Agile methodologies were used throughout the time to discuss, improve and implement solutions before the final delivery of the application.

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